This invention relates to superconducting materials and, more particularly, to microelectronic assemblies made from such materials.
The recent discovery of superconducting materials characterized by relatively high critical temperatures has spawned an extensive effort to understand and improve the materials. Moreover, considerable work has been done to begin processing the materials for eventual device fabrication.
One potentially promising area for superconductors is in the field of microelectronics. For this application, high-quality superconducting thin films on a variety of substrates have been demonstrated. However, useful application of these thin films requires subsequent processing to fabricate the various component structures required to form microelectronic assemblies.
Patterning a superconducting thin film to form leads that can serve as interconnects in an assembly has been accomplished. But little if any success has been reported heretofore on attempts to process the film to make additional components. If available, such components could be interconnected by patterned superconducting leads to form a microelectronic assembly.
Accordingly, considerable effort has been directed at trying to process a superconducting thin film to fabricate useful devices therein. It was recognized that this effort if successful had the potential for achieving integrated microelectronic assemblies in superconducting films.